FrightFest

Alvart keeps the film tight even with all the twists and revelations, so that even with everything going on my attention was held and I enjoyed the thrills. All the action going on in the Heligoland morgue worked well and was tense throughout, the scenes between Paul and Ingolf were less interesting...

This film is saddled with too much plot: there are six adapted stories plus a wraparound story, but the adapted stories are integrated into the wraparound so that all the setup and action takes place while the rest of the film is going on. It leads to an unbalanced effect where what seem like overco...

This was a formulaic animal attack plot that has been elevated by Aja's direction, which kept up a strong pace and piled on the tension. It's not particularly memorable but watching it was entertaining. My favourite of the opening night.

I knew what the twist was going to be almost straight away, but the interactions between Wood and McHattie were very entertaining. Unfortunately they finished all too soon, and then there was a lot of dead time where nothing much happens, before the film moved into a final act plagued by characters ...

Yes, great to see the return of the Q&As. I don't think people leaving during a Q&A or the credits is a problem -- they've sat through the movie and the Q&A should be a bonus for people who want to know more. Time between screenings is limited enough as it is.

At the back of the Arrow screen was a very pleasant temperature, at least until the air con stopped working during Tales From the Lodge and it became unpleasantly hot. It seems the the air con blasts down on the seats at the front which doesn't seem like a good idea because cold air is denser and wi...

I got my tickets reasonably easily this year, only having my payment rejected twice before it went through. For the thousands of quid in ticketing fees that nutickets are making, it’s disgraceful that Frightfest customers are having these experiences. My guess is that they cut corners and allocated ...

I do know that The Furies is playing at Edinburgh Film Festival, so unlikely it will be at Frightfest too. This isn't necessarily the case. Scotland is considered a separate country for screening purposes, so unlike Grimmfest and the Sheffield Screamfest, films that screen at the EFF often screen a...

Cannes has passed, so a lot of the Frightfest films are probably already in place. What films does everybody want for this year? And with this being the 20th Frightfest, what events/retrospectives could there be? There haven't been any Frightfest postcards for a while, so predictions are harder than...

The time travel paradoxes made enough sense for me to go with them. This is a spin on the ontological paradox, albeit a messy one that can be resolved by the paradoxical duplicate going back in time. The comedy is typical quirky Kiwi humour and sold well by the actors, with another great turn from J...

Generic monster movie with a giant boar. Lots of the film was people arguing in what felt like padded scenes. One of the worst films I saw over the weekend.

I'm a little sorry I didn't watch this. Does it go much into the year-by-year history - the changing venues, additional screens, particular films - or is it mainly recently-shot talking heads saying how great everything is? Probably 50:50. The different venue changes are all described and form a bi...

This one has fairly obvious precedents: it's an 80s kid's coming-of-age adventure typified Stand by Me and The Goonies but it closely follows the plot of Hitchcock's Rear Window , with a bit of Shadow of a Doubt thrown in there too (one of my friends said it reminded him of Disturbia which horrified...

I never thought the original puppet master films were any good, so this reimagining had a low bar to clear. The script is much better than the direction and camerawork, but they at least do what they need to do; setting up the situations and allowing the special effects guys to deliver the gory murd...

A middle-of-the-road slasher. The Ranger himself was quite a fun slasher villain. Him quoting park regulations before killing people was a fun slasher quirk. Other than that it's standard stuff, with a typical final girl, some decent gory kills and doomed teenagers. The teenagers were absolutely rev...